High fit

Privacy controls how much of yourself you reveal to people already in your life. The West End Cemetery community ran almost entirely on withheld identity — Mike Paterniti and his fellow dog owners knew each other's dogs but not each other's names, jobs, or inner lives. The Jeff situation forced a reckoning with what that level of privacy actually meant. After he left, Mike landed on an acceptance that this half-revealed version of community was real enough to be worth showing up for.